On a carousel

Remember the old Hollie's hit, On a Carousel? They were one of my favorite groups and, when Graham Nash left the Hollies to join Steven Stills and David Crosby, I was at first bummed but later fell in love with CS&N. Being on a carousel, or as we Yanks might call it, a merry-go-round, can be frustrating. It sometimes takes a lot of energy to get off the rut we find ourselves in and make a change, but change is typically better than going round and round without forward motion. I remember well when I was first hooked on electrostats. Man, I was on an electrostatic merry-go-round and for years no one could get me off of it. It had all started with my first listen to a pair of Quads. Holy crap! The transparency and window-like qualities of those speakers were magical. The fact they were extremely directional, had no bass, no volume, nor dynamics didn't phase me in the least. I was hooked. If they didn't have what I wanted, I could just go bigger. Jim Stricker's Acoustat electrostatic loudspeakers were my next acquisition and they solved the loudness problem because of their enormous size. Still, they had the head-in-a-vice directionality problem, no bass nor dynamics—but volume, clarity, and transparency were abundant. I even tried to add a subwoofer to those tall panels but back then, the subs were awful: slow, sluggish, and did not blend. For me, the electrostatic merry-go-round was slowing down but it hadn't yet stopped. After meeting Martin Logan's founder, Gayle Sanders, I had to give it one more spin. Gayle's electrostats were big, curved, and augmented with a built-in dynamic woofer. Nirvana! They could play loud, they had a bigger sweet spot, and by God, they had bass from that subwoofer. Still no dynamics. Still had to hold my head in a vice when listening, but.... Then the merry-go-round stopped and I stepped off into the magic of planars and lightning-fast dynamic woofers compliments of both Magnepan and Infinity. I haven't gotten back on the electrostatic carousel since. But, this isn't a post about electrostats. It's a post about being stuck on carousels. If you're stuck on a merry-go-round and everything you try doesn't get you where you'd hope to be, consider hitting the emergency stop button and regaining your balance. It's better to go forward than in circles.